Last week the blogosphere and news agencies lit up with articles on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying that Jesus spoke Hebrew and Pope Francis responding that he spoke Aramaic. The following is an Op Ed for Haaretz newspaper (Israeli's leading daily).

Why Jesus really was a Hebrew speaker
Hebrew, and not only Aramaic, was a spoken language at the time of Jesus, but PM Netanyahu’s exchange with the pope wasn’t only academic: It’s a debate with a clear religious and cultural subtext.
by Randall Buth

Interesting. It wasn't that way a few hours ago. But, yes, now when I try to view the article I get the same request for either subscribe or register. (I believe that registration allows 10 articles/month for free.)

Maybe I will be allowed to post the piece on the BLC website. It seems that one site, a "Streams in the Negev" has already copied the article en bloc.

There is a little bit of a hijack on the 'Streams in the Negev' article.

After the credits and my name two more paragraphs are added, without attribution.

It sounds like a "P.S." from me, since it uses the first person and no one else is named. I have no idea who the anonymous person was who wrote the following:

"Anonymous" added and wrote after the article:
I have always thought that Jesus spoke Hebrew as the primary spoken language of the people in His day. If Nehemiah pulled out the hair because the returning Jews from Babylonian exile were speaking the language of Babylon (which I assume was Aramaic), and not the language of the Jewish people, then surely the Messiah Himself would be speaking the language of the Hebrew man. (At the same time, I also believe that the language of the original texts of the New Testament was Greek, with many Hebraisms, given that nearly all of the writers were Israeli Hebrew speakers who could also communicate in Greek, the universal language of the day. There are lots of Americanisms in my own Hebrew!)

Erasing Hebrew as the language of Jesus and of the Israelis in His day is similar to referring to Him living in Palestine, rather than in the Land of Israel, as mentioned in Matthew when His mother and foster father returned with Him from Egypt. This is, on the one hand a form of anti-semitism; and on the other hand the righteousness of God: Israel wants to blot out the name and memory of Yeshua; the nations want to blot out Israel from being a nation anymore. Thanks and praise to God for our Redeemer and Savior to deliver us from the wrath to come!

for the original Ha-aretz article try googling "Jesus, Bibi, Hebrew, Pope" and choosing the ha-aretz link. It came up 5th when I tried, and the link coming from a Google search seems to work and go through the 'subscriber' filter. Or try googling "Why Jesus Hebrew Speaker"

apparently, a Facebook link opens the whole article, too.
Go to the following Facebook page:https://www.facebook.com/biblicallangua ... comments=2
and click on the the top link "BLC's Randall Buth responds to the Jesus language debate. Read his article in Haaretz: . . ."

The owner of the Streams in the Desert website was happy to clarify the ending paragraphs after Randall Buth's article ("Why Jesus Was a Hebrew-speaker") so that it did not appear that Randall wrote them.